Listed below is the second half of my application essay to The Founder Institute.  The second essay question asks applicants to write a few paragraphs about a field that they are passionate about.  I’ll have to admit, this took me a couple nights to write. I had a tough time organizing my words on this one.  Please comment and let me know what you think.  Thanks!

My true passion is minimalist design.  Specifically, I enjoy simple web interfaces and clean product packaging.  I am a big believer in stripping down a product or interface to only its essential parts and showcasing those parts to sell the product.  Minimalism is not only confined to web and product design.  You can apply the principles of minimalism to all aspects of life.  Modern architects have used minimalist design to create buildings that push the limits of conventional architecture.  Artists use simple shapes and patterns to create amazing minimalist art.  Homes and work spaces can be stripped free from unnecessary clutter and arranged in a way to actually increase productivity for the user.  It is true that sometimes more is not better.  Many times less is actually more.

I am a big believer in clean web interfaces and website design that challenges the status quo. Good website design should not be cluttered with useless information.  I believe that the future of website design will be clean and free from bright banner ads and distracting animations.  Websites should focus on their core product or service and find ways to integrate their revenue stream, through advertising or a subscription based model, into that content.  I truly believe that this is what users want.  Over the years, many websites have become so polluted with useless information that they have actually pushed away potential customers.  It does not matter if the content that a site was producing was amazing.  The problem was that the users had way too much stuff to sort through to get to that content.  If you look at some of the most successful websites on the internet, you will see that almost all of them were designed to be as simple as possible for the user.  Google’s home page features only a logo and a search bar, Craigslist features only text on its homepage, and Wikipedia makes it easy for users to immediately find the information they are looking for.  These are all excellent examples of minimalist design in use.  While Google, Craigslist, and Wikipedia all will not likely be winning any design contests anytime soon, there are hundreds of websites out there that feature a clean, simple use of colors, graphics and text.  This is how I feel the web should be viewed.  It creates a much better user experience and allows visitors to quickly find the things that they are looking for.

Branding and packaging design is such an important part of selling a product.  When consumers decide to make a purchase or use a product, there are so many things that go into that decision.  I believe that if a product is branded properly, its chances for success are greatly increased.  Good packaging design should be consistent with the brand image of the product.  It should be simple but stylish and well thought out.  Unnecessary branding and markings should be removed from packaging to create a focus on the the product and draw consumers attention to its features and and functionality.  When businesses take the time to come up with unique packaging, I think that customers take notice.  One of the reasons that Glacéau’s vitaminwater was such a smashing success in its early days was the fact that it was branded differently than most of the energy drinks that were available at the time.  Consumers were used to only seeing Gatorade and carbonated drinks on the shelves of grocery and convenience stores.  When vitaminwater launched, they challenged the status quo with their packaging design.  Their labels were minimal but conveyed a hip, trendy feel to the product.  Consumers noticed that vitaminwater was not the same as the other products that were on the market.  They quickly gained a strong following and created their own niche in one of the most competitive segments of the food industry.  Minimalist packaging, like that on Glacéau’s products, make a product stand out.

Users take notice when they see something different.  I think that minimalist design principles create excellent products and services for consumers.  They provide a better user experience, and focus on the core content of a product.  I have always tried to implement minimalist design principles into my projects and will do my best to stay consistent to those principles for future projects.